The Recession: no Solution to Large Scale Immigration

October 19, 2008

New research published today concludes that the widely forecast recession will not tackle the long term challenge of large scale immigration.

The report was prepared by Migrationwatch at the request of the Cross Party Group on Balanced Migration. It plots annual growth in GDP since 1970 to identify previous years of recession and examines what happened to net migration. It clearly shows that the reduction of immigration during a recession is only a temporary effect: immigration soon resumes its steep upward trend.

Commenting, Frank Field MP, Labour co-Chairman of the Cross Party Group said:

“Now that a recession is looming on the horizon, some people are claiming that the immigration problem will sort itself out. The record clearly disproves this claim. Government action remains essential and urgent if large-scale immigration is to be brought under control.”

Nicholas Soames MP, the Conservative co-Chairman, said:

“We must be sure that industry can continue to compete as markets get more difficult. But we must balance the needs of industry with those of society. Failure to curb immigration would mean having to build seven cities the size of Birmingham in England in the next 25 years for new immigrants. That would not be acceptable to the public.”